


The Viper of Many Smirks

by CenterFrame (WaterWych)



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Character Study, Gender-Neutral Apprentice, Implied Memory Loss, Light Angst, Other, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 07:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12501856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaterWych/pseuds/CenterFrame
Summary: He's a snake with his tongue, dangerous and vague.A viper of many smirks.





	The Viper of Many Smirks

Julian is a man of many smirks.

Predatorily thin and cunning; straining at the edge of his curled-up lips devious grins you want to draw away from and yet beckon.

Beckon from him another round of raucous snickering just to see that viper-like smile.

All red on black; black against red. Poised and just a little unhinged in that wolfish way of his.

Reflecting across the singularity of his one grey eye an ever lingering, hazy gaze.

It stirs things within the ribbed confines of your chest. The _crack crack crack_ of your heart stuttering awake after so long of dusty isolation, hidden away behind velvet drawn tarot cards and the white haired witch who never seemed to be home.

Coaxing at the back of your mind feelings unexplained.

A change of pace you welcome – even – as he tears the shattered breath from your lungs.

Cradling the bow of your body in his arms with that Murderer’s Mark pressed deep to the bite. The oozing venomous bite to the hollow space between your ribs.

Blood as red as his hair against his surgical fingers and a look on his face that is anything but a smirk.

You do not like that look.

Concern and care riled up into one sultry grin he later bestows upon you at Mazelinka’s hut.

A sycophant smile full of teeth and vim; sharp canines and vigor. Mingling at the back of your thoughts with the scent of pungent spices and raw herbs.

You ask the doctor if he’s fine, and with a tepid look in that one hazy eye, the parting of those careful lips you hate and love, he nods his mane of messy red hair.

Bloody like red blood clots and an almost dazed, hungry grin mapped on the curvature of his face.

_Nothing I wouldn’t do again._

And he’s a snake with his tongue, dangerous and vague.

Leaving with you a flushed ache in your heart and the taste of worrywort against your mouth.

Taking with him all his sharp angles and snarky grins in the uniform of black.

Colorless black on fiery red.

An empty numbness to the contours of your ribcage.

It is not an emptiness of unfamiliarity, but of melancholy, just like the memories you can never ring up from the barred depths of your subconscious.

And though they were unrecallable, fleeting and quick, you were always sure of one thing.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

 

He was a viper of many smirks.  

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on a roll! Similar to the last one I wrote up for Asra, but just a little something for Julian this time (though I find him a little harder to write). 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and comments/kudos always appreciated~


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